Election to Richmond City School Board

Published date:
November 17, 2016

The Reginald F. Lewis College of Business at Virginia State University’s own Jonathan Young won election to the City of Richmond School Board on November 8th in a four way race. In winning over 6,100 votes, Young was elected to serve a four year term on the School Board for Richmond City Schools with a population of 24,000 students. Young, a faculty/administrator with the title of Director of Corporate Relations has been at VSU since 2007. His responsibilities regard all things industry/academia collaboration to include teaching, business development, talent acquisition, fundraising, marketing, hosting industry in the classroom, etc. His principal constituency groups include 1) a portfolio of over 600 companies and 2) undergraduates.

At a Board of Visitors meeting in November, Virginia State University President Makola Abdullah acknowledged Young’s electoral success and shared with attendees that it was Jonathan’s students that arrived at VSU from Richmond Public Schools that constituted the impetus for Young’s campaign. Jonathan would add that he aims to bring the same kind of approach to Richmond Public Schools that he has adopted at VSU to include a focus on 1) relationships 2) experiential learning 3) soft-skills and 4) student-centric culture. He continued that his aim in all things education is to refine "soft skills", augment career awareness, and develop "real world" skills not often learned in a traditional classroom!